Empire Rising A Novel

by Kelly, Thomas

• ISBN13: 9780312425746
• ISBN10: 0312425740
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-01-24
• Publisher: Picador

Summary

It is 1930, and ground has just been broken for the Empire State Building. One of the thousands of men who will come to work high above the city is Michael Briody, an Irish immigrant torn between his desire to make a new life in America and his pledge to gather money and arms for the Irish republican cause. When he meets Grace Masterson, an alluring artist who is depicting the great skyscraper''s rise from her houseboat on the East River, Briody''s life suddenly turns exhilarating--and dangerous--for Grace is also a paramour of Johnny Farrell, Mayor Jimmy Walker''s liaison with Tammany Hall and the underworld. Thomas Kelly is the author of two previous novels: Payback , called "the best story about New York''s labor unions, corrupt contractors and organized crime since On the Waterfront " (S an Francisco Chronicle ); and The Rackets , described as "an elegy for the city''s old Irish working class, and even for its tangled, unavoidable dealings with the Mafia" ( The New York Times Book Review ). Kelly, who worked for ten years in construction, is a graduate of Fordham University and Harvard''s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He lives in New York City. A New York Times Notable Book A Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year It is 1930, and ground has just been broken for The Empire State Building, dubbed "the Eighth Wonder of the World." One of the thousands of men working high above the city is Michael Briody, an Irish immigrant torn between his desire to make a new life in America and his pledge to gather money and arms for the Irish Republican cause. When he meets Grace Masterson, an alluring artist who is depicting the great skyscraper''s rise from her houseboat on the East River, Briody''s life turns exhilarating'”and dangerous, for Grace is also a paramour of Johnny Farrell, Mayor Jimmy Walker''s liaison with Tammany Hall, and the New York underworld. Their heartbreaking love story'”which takes place both in the rough neighborhoods of the Bronx and amid the swanky nightlife of the ''21'' Club'”is also a chronicle of the city''s passage from a working-class enclave to a world-class metropolis, and a vivid reimagining of the conflict that pitted the Tammany Hall political machine against the boundlessly ambitious Franklin Delano Roosevelt. With Payback and The Rackets , Thomas Kelly has shown himself to be a master of the urban thriller. With Empire Rising he takes his work to a new level. In his telling of the story of the people who made America''s most distinctivecity, New York is brought exuberantly to life. " Empire Rising is an ode to urban grease; I''ll never look at that grand old building the same way again . . . There is a compelling muscularity to [Kelly''s] work'”the plots barrel along, the characters are wildly colorful'”and there is a dead-on authenticity to the dialogue and the atmospherics. There is also a bracing, and rare, appreciation for the sheer satisfaction of honest work . . . Kelly is a big-hearted and admirably ambitious writer. He wants to show the city top to bottom, from Jimmy Walker''s boudoir to the Irish pubs in the South Bronx where the construction workers drink their paychecks . . . Kelly''s city is palpably alive and passionate, and very recognizably New York, especially in the vertiginous rush of upward mobility, the fissures it causes within families, the loyalties strained, the traditions lost."'” Joe Klein, The New York Times Book Review "Kelly mixes his fictional characters with historical ones, and the dialogue and atmospherics are pitch-perfect."'” Ihsan Taylor, The New York Times Book Review "Kelly has obviously done his research. New York in 1930 shines through the pages with high resolution. Kelly gives us impressive cameos of Babe Ruth, the photographer Lewis Hines, and Cab Calloway, as well as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose presidential ambitions drive much of the political deal-making in the novel . . . The swiftness with which Kelly moves from the atmosphere of the job site to his

Author Biography

Thomas Kelly is the author of The Rackets and Payback. He lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

"An extraordinary thriller about the political gangsters, builders, and bullies who constructed the Empire State Building."--Esquire

"Empire Rising is everything a period novel should be."--Time

"There is a compelling muscularity to his work--the plots barrel along, the characters are wildly colorful."--Joe Klein, The New York Times Book Review

"An engaging book in the grand old realistic tradition, a gripping piece of national history, a nicely felt lovely story, that takes us into the building sites and busy streets . . . that becomes, because of Kelly's convincing storytelling manner, every city."--Alan Cheuse, Chicago Tribune

"New York in 1930 shines through the pages with high resolution."--Peter Campion, San Francisco Chronicle